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Casey standsbeside a pair of boots sticking up from the ground soles first, a couple inches of denim showing below.
“I love our friends,” she says. “And I love a good running gag. However...”
“If they plant any more dead bodies, you’re going to throttle them?”
I lift one rubber boot, and the stick propping it up lists to one side, denim crumpling around it. I lift the other one and hold both out. “Nice boots.”
“Because they’re mine,” she says, taking them.
The joke, of course, is that Casey seems to stumble over dead bodies far more often than is healthy for anyone, even a homicide detective. Not entirely true. Well, yeah, stumbling over dead bodies is never a good thing, but it’s not as if she goes out in the forest and finds them littering the landscape. The fault lies with the situation, that situation being that she spent the last couple of years in a hidden town where people went to disappear. Except sometimes, they went to Rockton andthendisappeared—into the forest and into shallow graves. That’s what happens when your so-called safe haven is run by people so greedy they’ll send killers into your midst and then blame you for the bodies... blame Casey for uncovering murder... blame me—as the sheriff—for not stopping people from murdering.
It’ll be different now. Rockton is gone, and we’re starting our own version, one without all the corporate bullshit. We’ve been in Northern British Columbia for two months now as we pore over maps and make plans for the next Rockton—ourRockton. A town where, as Will says, our slogan will be “Now with seventy-five percent less murder!” Personally, I’m really hoping for a hundred percent less.
I take the boots from Casey and stuff them into my backpack. We’re out walking our dog, Storm, while the others duel over supply-chain concerns. Not our job, or so we’ve declared because we’ve reached the point where our eyes glaze over at the very mention of the wordssupplyorchain. Our job is finding the perfect building site and coming up with an admission process that is as killer-proof as possible.
While we plan, we’ve taken over a vacation lodge. It’s off-season, so we got it cheap, which is good, because this new town is costing a shitload of money. Money that isn’t mine. Yeah, Casey would point out that some of it is. I got a payout from the Rockton council, which I’m trying to consider a compensation package rather than the fucking blood money it feels like.
I know I shouldn’t think that way. I earned this damn money. I spent my entire working life in Rockton, compensated with what Casey calls “pin money.” I had a house, unlimited credits to spend in town and a little bit of actual cash for when I left on supply runs. Most of that money I squirreled away in case of an emergency, and I thought I had plenty. Now that I’m out of Rockton, I’ve realized that I have enough to get me through a couple months. So, yeah, the council owed me, but I’m still happier donating that windfall to the new town... and I’m trying not to feel bad that it couldn’t have been more.
We walk mostly in silence. With Casey, silence never feels like empty space that we don’t know how to fill. We sure as hellcanfill it, if we have something to say. But when we don’t, the silence floats like a bubble of peace while we enjoy the walk and the companionship. The first part—enjoying a walk—comes naturally to me. I was born in the forest, grew up in it, and I’m never happier than when I’m there. Being out there with someone else, though, meant doing a task: fishing, hunting, gathering. If I wanted to enjoy myself, I went alone. That’s changed. I still go out by myself sometimes, when I’m not fit company, but otherwise, I’d rather be with Casey. It’s as comfortable as being alone, with the added benefit of, well,notbeing alone.
We walk with Storm for an hour before heading back to the lodge. Everyone’s settling into the dining room. As we hear their voices, Casey murmurs, “One question, before they realize we’re back.”
“Whose turn is it to cook?”
“Exactly.”
“Kenny’s,” I say.
“Whew.”
We’ve temporarily lost our usual cooks. Devon and Brian—who ran the bakery in Rockton—volunteered as our chefs while we’re here, mostly so they can avoid the endless tedium of town planning. They’re taking a much-deserved vacation week in Vancouver. That means we rotate through meal prep, and we’ve quickly discovered that—as much time as we spent together in Rockton—there’s one thing we didn’t know about our closest friends: how well they cooked.
In Rockton, everyone had access to at least a kitchenette, but most people got their meals from the canteen or restaurants. I was an exception, having cooked from the time I was old enough to stir a pot. I’m no expert, but if it meant having guaranteed time to myself, I made my own meals. Then Casey came along, and cooking meant guaranteed time toourselves. She’d say I’m the better chef, but she’s a damn sight better than her sister, April, who is a damn sight better than Will... And the list goes on.
It doesn’t help that we’ve temporarily lost a few of our best substitute cooks, too. Maryanne has gone home for the first time in ten years, with Petra accompanying her for moral support. Jen stayed for a few weeks before an invitation from Ty Cypher lured her back into the forest. Of course, the problem with having Jen cook was the fear that she’d poison us all. Then there’s Mathias, who has gone south with Sebastian for undeclared business. Mathias is an excellent chef, one who is just as likely to poison us, though in his case, it’d be for fun.
Maybe instead of seventy-five percent fewer murderers in our town, we should aim for seventy-five percent fewer murderers in our friend group.
Nah, that’s not fair. The people I know who’ve killed someone are the least likely to do it again. That includes me. I had to—sometimes, in the forest, it’s kill or be killed, kill or watch someone you love die—but that means I don’t want to ever do it again. It’s the folks who’ve never taken a life who are the real threat. That’s the problem with the new town, as much as I hate to admit it, and it’s why those joke-staged bodies bug me more than they should, because I know we might face an impossible challenge.
We can do our best to keep serial killers from hiding in our new town. But experience tells ustheyaren’t usually the problem. The problem comes from bringing strangers together and hoping they don’t snap. Hoping that the isolation doesn’t seep into their bones and make them do something they’ll spend the rest of their lives regretting.
We’re offering people a chance to escape whatever they need to escape. Maybe that’s the husband whose next beating will be fatal. Maybe it’s the stalker whose obsession will turn deadly. Maybe it’s having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, seeing something you shouldn’t have seen, something that might get you killed. Maybe it’s even just shitty life choices that will kill you if you don’t outrun them.
We offer escape. We offer second chances.
But it’s like those damned D&D games Will loves so much. Roll the twenty-sided dice. Fifteen chances to go home safe and clear. Four chances for a draw, where you leave Rockton no better or worse than you came. But there’s that one chance in twenty that something goes wrong, either inside you or inside someone around you, and that’s not a ten percent chance of dying—we wouldn’t run a fucking town on those odds—but it’s a ten percent chance that means you’d have been better off never setting foot in our town. That’s the part I hate. I want a hundred percent improvement, and I can’t offer that.
I stride into the dining room and hold up the rubber boots. “Anyone want to explain this?”
April’s coming out of the kitchen with a covered pot. “They’re Casey’s. If she doesn’t recognize them, perhaps that is a sign that she owns too many pairs.”
“There’s no such thing,” Casey says.
“I fully support Casey’s boot habit,” Nicole says from her seat across the room. “Having blown far too much on shoes in my life, she’s making a much more practical choice. Also, I want those boots.” Nicole nudges Jacob beside her and fakes a sugar-sweet voice. “Honey, can you get me a pair of those? Please? A little something for the mother of your child-to-be?”
